The top 20 are generally considered the shadow cabinet. Cunliffe has been given a portfolio, but this indicate he will not be in the Government if Shearer wins. In fact only the top 14 or so might get to be in Cabinet as you need room for coalition partners.

The top eight sit on the front bench, so King, Jones and Twyford join the front bench and Sio, Mahuta and Street get demoted off it. That is a significant reshuffle for the front bench.

King is a very safe pair of hands, and may be the first Labour Health Spokesperson in four years to lay a blow on Ryall. Against that promoting someone who was a Minister in the 1980s onto the front bench in the 2010s doesn’t signal rejuvenation.

I’ve previously said that Jones and Twyford deserve promotions. I am surprised Hipkins didn’t go all the way onto the front bench though.

Robertson is put in charge of jobs. He is an effective politician but may struggle for credibility to talk about job creation when as far as I know his entire career has been in the public sector, and he has never actually worked in the private sector which actually creates the jobs (and funds the public sector).

David Clark is obviously well thought off to put him against Steven Joyce. He has worked in Treasury so understands economics (unlike most of his colleagues).

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2013 at 1:39 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
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David Clark is obviously well thought off to put him against Steven Joyce. He has worked in Treasury so understands economics (unlike most of his colleagues).

He exposed the lack of depth in some of his economic knowledge last year.

He’s been given:
Spokesperson for Economic Development
Spokesperson for Small Business

Don’t know how much experience he has in those, I’m not aware of him working in small business. Interestingly his co-Dunedin MP (who Clark has leapfrogged in the rankings) is Associate Spokesperson for Economic Development.

12 on the bench is a rapid rise for Clark, he was 49 on Labour’s list in 2011.

As I look at that line up of talent the question going through my mind is “If you had to start a new political party from scratch with those as your candidates then would you really get past the 5% threshold?”.

Labour as a brand has a lot of inertia. Too many people tick the red Labour box because they always have, and because their parents always did.

But this mob of hacks and has beens is not adding any lustre to that brand. With this sort of talent at the helm Labour is in a death spiral.

It truly is a shocking lineup, but you can only play the cards you’re dealt and Phil Goff’s failure to get sufficient new blood in during his time as leader and make a clean break from the Clark years is holding them back.

The truly frightening thing is this lot which a bunch of greens added have an even money shout of being in power in 18 months.

Annette King is 65 years old and first entered CABINET in the 1980’s
This is Annette taking one for the Labour team as a final thank you for decades at the trough. Nobody has laid a glove on Tony Ryall in four years, I do not see that changing.

Quite what experience a middle class farm girl from the Waikato with no private sector paid employment or children brings to her portfolio responsibilities is a complete mystery. Ardern must simply be the acceptable face of Labour. What an irony for a party that was run by an extreme feminist for most of the last two decades has fallen to promoting a woman based solely on the fact she is not ugly.
The only winner in this is Mallard, more time for cycling and romance and he can take a break from being blamed for everything.

And lets not forget Mr Blobby. Employment???? Far out, playing Baldrick to H2, eating and sucking on the public tit gets you the employment portfolio.
A man who irons his shirt with a wok will never be PM again in this country.

Correct BB; King and Mallard both entered Parliament in 1984, got turfed in the Bolger landslide of 1990, and returned in 1993. If Annette King is the future of the Labour Party, then the Labour Party is in deep shit.

The only longer serving MP’s now than Mallard and King are Winston Peters and Phil Goff.

What does Little understand about a justice portfolio? And tourism! I would have thought that some semblance of charisma would be an essential ingrediant for tourism. Wonder how he will deal with the Hollywood moguls when he tries to get some free publicity?

You think that after all these years in Parliament, Mallard doesn’t care where he is ranked? There’s a Tui billboard right there.

He’ll be smarting behind the customary Mallard smirk. He can talk about about a glorious future as Speaker all he likes. He knows this is a right spanking from Shearer for his abject failure on strategy.

The resuscitation of Annette King is quite interesting. Hardly rejuvenation. Labour will be hoping she can get some runs against Tony Ryall. I always felt she was overrated. Smart politically but not all that bright.

This is a great line up. With Aunty King in the front bench, Shearer has rejuvenated his line up. Lots of talent and this is a government in waiting. John Key must be shaking in fear now. Shearer looks like a clear winner in 2014. Shearer is telling Kiwi public that Aunty is the future. I can’t wait for the Labour-Green-NZ First-Mana combination to come into power in 2014 and ruin this country economically. Then only people will wake up.

David Clark for Dunedin North
I’ve received a big promotion in the Labour reshuffle, picking up Economic Development and Small Business. David Shearer says he wants a smart, green, diversified economy. My job is to show how we get there.

The resuscitation of Annette King is quite interesting. Hardly rejuvenation. Labour will be hoping she can get some runs against Tony Ryall. I always felt she was overrated. Smart politically but not all that bright.

IIRC, Annette King was given instructions to take down Paula Bennett when Bennett was given the Social Development portfolio. That Jacinda Ardern took over from her suggests that Mrs King failed miserably. Now she is up against Tony Ryall, who has probably been National’s best-performing minister since 2008. I doubt that Ryall will toss and turn all night tonight.

And as an aside, King may turn out to be the wrong choice for Health for another reason. It was the whistle being blown on some dodgy contracting processes (and her husband Ray Lind’s connection with Peter Hausmann) which led to David Cunliffe sacking the democratically elected Hawke’s Bay District Health Board in early 2008. Labour took a huge hit over Baygate, and the Napier electorate went from a safe Labour seat for many years to a win for National in 2008, and a majority of almost 4000 for Chris Tremain in 2011.

Toad>I guess that no-one in the top 20 has been allocated Transport means they have already surrendered that to Julie Anne Genter and the Greens.

No, it means they don’t think transport is important enough to appoint a spokesperson. They’ve surrendered to Gerry Brownlee.

Who was Labour’s previous transport spokesperson? I’m struggling to remember, so it doesn’t seem they made any impact. It wasn’t Bicycling Trev by any chance? He seems to spend most of his time on NZ’s roads.

The standard is buzzing like a bee hive since the reshuffle. Shit they really do not like Shearer and co and heading off to the greens. I could not imagine National supporters dumping on John Key in this way.

Shearer chose the tired old hacks because they are on avergae more competent and less nutty than the newer people. It simply reflects the steady decline in the quality of candidates selected – driven in turn by Labour’s crusade for ideological purity and distrust of moderates.

duggledog – As crap as this lineup looks, and it’s a sorry, sorry list, it only takes a bunch of equally hopeless, leftist/selfist successful candidates from other parties to have sufficient seats for a coalition government to be formed. Hooorah for MMP